-
Sorry for the spam, but this is the last one for now.
Nope! Keep us (me) updated with the progress. I may go down a similar route so am very interested to hear how you get on. Are you considering attempting to monitor the water temperature at the group? I imagine that may be a more invasive procedure, but would yield more accurate results I reckon.
mmccarthy-
I am certainly interested in measuring the water temperature at the group, but I'm unsure how to go about it. I'm hesitant about drilling in the grouphead itself, partly because I don't want to buy an (expensive) new one if I ruin it, but more so because any hole would need to be airtight up to (give or take) 15 bar.
These guys have figured out a way to mount a manometer on top of the of the piston rod, for which they have drilled a hole in it lengthwise. But that also needs modification of the lever, because the pin can no longer feed through. A solution would tapping thread in the lever and then putting in bolts from both sides which leave a small room in the middle to feed the wire through, but I don't think my fabrication skills are up for that.
More pictures here, looks like they use some sort of spring to keep the lever pins in the piston. https://www.home-barista.com/levers/la-pavoni-europiccola-brew-pressure-gauge-kit-t45609.html
But I can't come up with another way of getting a temperature measurement right above the shower screen.
Tijmen
Sorry for the spam, but this is the last one for now. 🙄
PID has taken over and it's holding its temperature quite well, green being heater wattage, red being temperature and blue being the setpoint. The dip in temperature was me opening the steam valve to check its response.
All that's left is tidying it up into a neat box with a couple of buttons.